Sunday Moses Adebayo Aloko
Book Title: An Economic History of West Africa
Author: A.G. Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge, Oxon, 2022
Pages: xiii + 339
ISBN: 978-0-367-00243-5
The first edition of A.G. Hopkins An Economic History of West Africa, was first published in 1973 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited. In 2014, it was published by Routledge, which has equally published its second edition in 2020. The book was/is a masterpiece and a pioneering study in the economic history of Africa, which was relatively new as at the time it was first written. Thus, it filled a huge gap and also inspired further studies in the economic history of Africa. In addition to being a seminal text on the subject matter, the author of the book demonstrated scholarship in the way and manner he intellectually engaged extant studies in the history of Africa, through a plethora of primary and secondary data, which featured prominently throughout the book.
Contrary to the dominant view amongst African scholars, especially those of the Zaria School of History led by the late Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman, that the study propagates the theory of modernization in line with the thoughts of colonial historiography, the book is in my view one of the most objective, balanced and detailed text for anyone who wants to genuinely understand the economic history of West Africa. For instance, unlike the early writings of Eurocentric writers, who argued that external trade in West Africa resulted from contacts with the Europeans, Hopkins argued that it had developed much earlier, but was expanded upon by the legitimate trade and commerce of the Second half of the 19th century. In fact, it has provided a viable alternative to the largely fictitious and Afro-centric account of the economic history of Africa, written by scholars who were infuriated with the colonial episode of African history. Some of these scholars included Walter Rodney, Amir Cabral and many others not mentioned.
The second edition updated the first with a long introduction, covering 43 pages. The author, through the new introduction, provided the personal basis for embarking on his ambitious research effort after his undergraduate studies as well as the political climate of thought and historiographical issues that informed the writing of the book. Furthermore, the introduction provided great insights into literature on the topic that have emerged since its release in 1973.
The first chapter delves into theoretical approaches in the study of Africa’s economic past. The author argued that a pragmatic, rather than an ideological approach would sufficed after considering the Marxist theoretical framework and the history of technology. Hence, he settled for an approach that combines the interactions between market and non-market forces, while denouncing teleology. Little wonder why his study centred around the concept of market, in tandem with the volume and value of transactions of services within the framework of time and the social relations of production. Interestingly, in his final and very important chapter, within the period 1930 and 1960, the limitations of market participations were highlighted in relation to the tendencies of restricting market activities. His pragmatic approach was a departure from the traditional approach and made it possible for him to combat the dominant argument, which claimed that precolonial African economy was culturally limited and stagnated economically, until it was transformed by external influences.
Chapter two focuses on the domestic economy; its structure and functions. It built on the critique of the widely held notion about the traditional economy of Africa but furthered the discourse to another characteristic of the West African economies, which is the fact that land was relatively more abundant in relation to labour resource. He argued from a Malthusian economic perspective, that it was impeded by a number of natural constraints on the productive utilization of the land surplus. Some of the limitations were endemic diseases in the forest and savannah zones, low population, fragile soil fertility, uneven division of seasonal rainfall. All of these challenges impeded on the potential of achieving economic growth in West Africa. This limitation extended into the colonial period, such that the ruling class in the region made their wealth from the extortion of people, and little from the land. Thus, Hopkins introduced what is known as the Neiboer Domar hypothesis in the study of West Africa’s economic past. The theory is predicated on the conditions under which forced labour becomes profitable for rulers, given the scarcity of labour and capital in relation to an abundant land resource. The theory was however, one of the tools of historical explanation, not an end in itself. In principle, external trade has the potential of providing enormous economic opportunities for growth and development and in overcoming the small size of domestic markets in West Africa, which was both underpopulated and economically resource-constrained.
In the third chapter, Hopkins analyzed why the above opportunities were to a great extent unavailable during the largely slave export trade across the Sahara and the Atlantic. The reason he advanced was that the trade was monopolized by the rulers and their partnering merchant class. Besides, some captives fought, others fled in the process of the commerce.
The fourth chapter explained the transition into the post-trans-Atlantic slave era, which was both gradual and uneven. The era is generally considered to be the period of the so-called legitimate commerce in cash crops such as groundnuts (peanuts) from the savanna areas of Senegal and Gambia, and palm oil (and then also palm kernels) trade, dominated by the forest zones of the coast of West Africa. The chapter has two sections. Hopkins, in the first, contends that the legitimate commerce introduced West African traders into the intercontinental trade, while reducing the commercial benefits of the political class. In the second section, he averred that the decline of ruler’s share of the new market engendered crises when the new commerce was disrupted and led to a shift in the terms of trade between Western Europe and West Africa. Consequently, both parties adopted extra-economic measures to broaden the scope of their shares of a downward sliding trade. While the rulers of West Africa decided to raise tolls, European traders lobbied their governments to acquire territories in the region. One of the corollary of this commercial struggle was the partitioning of the region by interested European powers.
Hopkins interpretation of the events during the 19th century debunked the traditional assumption that European colonialism birthed a new beginning in the modern economic history of West Africa. He maintained that the fundamental structure of West African economies up to the final years of the colonial period, which was based on export agriculture in the hands of many relatively small producers, is traceable to several decades before the ‘Scramble for the partitioning of Africa.’ According to him, it began during the legitimate trade. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 covered the colonial period, beginning from the late 19th century to the independence of British West African territories, which included Nigeria and other French West African territories.
In chapter 5 in particular, the author examined the model of the colonial economy on the grounds of the degree to which it could be said to be ‘open’ or ‘closed’ to influences emanating from the international capitalist economy. Chapter 6 built on the argument by exploring what he referred to as the ‘the completion of the open economy’ up to 1929. He argued that despite the expectations placed on colonial governments to avoid budget deficits, relative favorable prices in the world market enabled them to invest in modern transport and communication systems. However, expansion in economic activities was made possible by investments in cash crops for export by Africans. Drawing from the pioneering studies of Jan S. Hogendorn and Polly Hill, Hopkins claimed that the role of African traders in decision-making and the rapid rise of Ghana to the status of the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans, and northern Nigeria in the export of groundnuts, persuaded European imperialists to leave lands in West Africa in the hands of the people. This decision, according to Hopkins, tremendously shaped the course and patterns of capitalist development in West Africa.
Chapter 7 discusses the open economy ‘under strain’. It claims that the transition towards a more closed economy, in pursuance of industrialization, through state intervention and regulations, started in the last three decades of colonialism. The governments of West Africa gradually began to respond to deteriorating terms of trade, through interventionist policies. However, the connection between investment and exports weakened because government’s spending on education and health rose after World War II. The resumption in the expansion of mineral and agricultural exports in the 1950s created opportunities for investment in manufacturing, which was not adequately attended to.
The chapter concluded by showing how economic discontents in West Africa gave rise to the emergence of powerful nationalist movements that led to the independence of colonial territories. The book initially published at the early stages of independence in my opinion would have been greatly improved if the second edition had expanded the focus of the book to include the impact of the post-colonial state on economic development in the West African subregion. This may provide a basis for a comparative analysis of Africa’s colonial and post-colonial histories, in the light of raging controversies on the impact of the colonial economy on the post-colonial economies of West Africa.
NIGERIA REVIEW OF BOOKS 